


Advent Angel

by dozmuffinxc



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-17
Updated: 2012-12-17
Packaged: 2017-11-21 08:21:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/595569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dozmuffinxc/pseuds/dozmuffinxc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A drabble set response to a past "secret Santa" challenge at Granger Snape 100 mixed with a nod to the tradition of celebrating Advent.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Advent Angel

Professor Granger was in a foul mood and growing crosser every minute. She had been looking so forward to the start of Advent, a tradition she had observed since infancy. Every night in December her parents would sit her down and read her Christmas stories and they would sing carols together by the fire. But now?

Now she had Exploding Snaps igniting the curtains in the Gryffindor common room. Just this morning, Belias Belphy let a Dung Bomb loose in the girl’s dormitory. Hermione had woken to shrill screams.

Didn’t these children know anything about the spirit of the season?

***************************************

Hermione was early, as always. She enjoyed the comfortable quiet of her empty classroom, and that peace was no less welcome today. She had decorated the spacious chamber with holly and twinkling fairy lights a week ago and now, standing alone beneath the Christmas wreath over her desk, she allowed herself a smile.

It was then that she noticed it.

There, on her desk, a tiny package wrapped in silver paper perched atop her pile of freshly-graded essays. No note and no name, but when she opened it she found a little, silver bell.

Hermione gasped. How did they know?!

***************************************

From that day on throughout the entire month of December, Hermione hurried to her classroom with childlike anticipation. Her Advent Angel hadn’t let her down, not once; every morning she found a present waiting, and each day that gift was something unique and special.

Hermione smiled each time she thought of that first day’s present. Who could possibly know that The Polar Express was her absolute favorite holiday story? 

Each morning, Hermione would unwrap her package and try to guess who could possibly know that vanilla rooibos was her favorite tea, or that Emily Dickinson’s poems always made her cry.

***************************************

It became almost a game; once the other staff members learned about Professor Granger’s Advent Angel, each one made it their business to share with her who they thought it most likely to be.

"Perhaps it’s Neville, my dear," Professor Sprout whispered to her confidentially at breakfast one morning. "He’s such a dear, you know, and the biggest help around the greenhouses."

"Have you asked Potter and Weasley?" Minerva McGonagall asked, peering down at Hermione over her spectacles.

But she had asked Harry and Ron, and they both admitted sheepishly that it hadn’t been them.

Who, then, could it be?

***************************************

The staff room was a sight to behold on Christmas Eve. The Christmas tree in the corner had been strung with strands of glass bulbs enchanted to blink in alternating red and green that glinted off the odd assortment of ornaments contributed by each member of the faculty. A Yule log blazed merrily in the hearth, and there was no end to the flow of eggnog and good cheer.

Carols had been sung and last minute gifts exchanged. Hermione remained after the other professors had returned to their rooms. In her lap, a tiny glass ornament levitated above her palm.

***************************************

"It’s been charmed to reflect memories of your Christmas past."

She was so startled to hear someone else’s voice in what she thought was an empty room that the sound made Hermione jump. The little glass bulb slipped between her fingers and would have shattered against the floor had the long, pale fingers of Professor Snape not been there to catch it.

"Thank you," Hermione gasped, "but how did you... oh!"

"It took you long enough. I thought, surely, the brightest witch of her age - "

Severus’ words were lost in a hug full of love, gratitude, and bushy, brown hair.

***************************************

"How did you know about all my favorite things?" Hermione asked over mugs of cocoa by the fire. "The Polar Express, my rooibos tea, and... well, I didn’t even know wizards celebrated Advent!"

"You forget I was raised in a half-Muggle household," Snape smiled. The expression was not common for him, but Hermione found she quite liked it.

"As for the rest," he continued. "Five years of working together is quite sufficient to learn about a person. And when that person is a retired spy, you can imagine -- "

Once again, Hermione stopped his words, this time with a kiss.

***************************************

The next few years were ones of change at Hogwarts. Minerva McGonagall stepped down as headmistress to make way for the newly married Severus Snape, and with his young, bushy-haired bride as Deputy Headmistress, the school knew a period of academic rigor and House cooperation hitherto unimagined.

Every year, as new faculty and old hung their ornaments on the staff room tree on Christmas Eve, their eyes would be drawn to one small, glass globe. Images flitted across its surface, but one in particular lingered longest: a man and a woman joined in a kiss on their first Advent together.


End file.
